A mass explosion occurred on Monday night between two panelists on ABC’s Q&A program. Independent Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie and Queensland Islamic youth leader Yassmin Abdel-Magied. The feud was over Sharia law in general. See video below for the full battle:

It is a shame that Magied did not have someone better equipped to debate with. Lambie is not a good conversationalist or debater. She did not have the facts and stats to back up what she was saying. Lambie started off poorly by saying “anyone who supports Sharia should be deported”. What if a citizen supports it? You cannot deport a citizen.

Magied declared Islam to be the most feminist religion and heavily suggested that Islam and Sharia law is progressive and non problematic.

Furthermore, Magied released a video online called WTF IS SHARIA LAW?

Her “explanation” of Sharia Law can be found below:

I have watched her tutorial video three times. It’s very interesting. She’s mostly lying through her teeth. She gives some facts and mixes it up well to make it seem copacetic. She’s not addressing the inequality and human rights violations that Sharia law enforces on women, gays, apostates, non believers, petty thieves, adulterers and critics of the Prophet.

No religion is feminist, least of all Islam. All religions are based on patriarchal structures.

She bounces between faith and culture. Surely, she realises that the Muslim faith is married to the Islamic doctrines. This forms the Qur’an. Islamic law and culture heavily draws from the Qur’an and the words of the Prophet Mohammed.

Her claim that Muslim women had rights before Europeans is muddled. Egyptian women did have land rights and power before European women did. They were the first in the Middle Eastern/North African region. However, that is a triumph for Egyptian women specifically. It was not a triumph for Islam in general. She can hardly claim that to be a progressive Islamic revolution.

The combination of the religion and its law have caused the suffering and persecution of millions. She may live under Sharia law unofficially in Australia by handpicking what she chooses. That’s easy to do here, there are no repercussions.

I’d like to see her explain her personalized abridged version of Sharia law to people who are not happy and suffer living under it. Nations that fully enforce it: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Brunei, Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Mauritania.

She conveniently only mentions prayer requirements on the panel discussion. The most non problematic Sharia law requirement

Magied also says that according to Sharia law, Muslims have to follow the law of the land that they inhabit. This is true but she left out something crucial. They are also not supposed to contradict Sharia law. The Muslim is to show “patience” and adhere to the minimum that the law requires of them.

They are not supposed to rebel in non Sharia law land. In other words, show control and implement bare minimum. If and when you are on Sharia land and you have that woman/gay/apostate in your grasp, you can inflict punishment for standards of broken code.

It’s also worth noting that one of the main objectives of Islamic doctrine is for the implementation of Sharia law wherever possible and Jihad is the best means of achieving that goal.

Since then, Muslim communities have demand that Jacqui Lambie apologize for her “racism”. She is uninformed. Lambie was aggressive. She’s not articulate. You could even accuse her of being crude. However, why should she apologize for “racism?” . I watched the argument countless times and I heard her say nothing about a race/ethnicity. I only heard her criticizing a religious based law…

5 comments

I find it interesting (and quite ironic) that the televised debate was followed by a demand for an apology by the ABC from 49 Muslim scholars, lawyers and others claiming to speak for all Australian Muslims and alleging “Islamophobia” (What’s new??). They criticised ABC host Tony Jones for not upholding the “values of respect and fairness” and for failing to provide a “safe environment” for Abdel-Magied. I have learnt since (via other articles in The Australian) that Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s appearance on Q&A was part of a public relations exercise paid for by the Australian Government to promote Australia in several Muslim countries! Some would call this ‘sleeping with the enemy’, and either way it was an extremely unwise course of action, and (as you’d expect) has backfired badly!

Hi @annbowyer Thanks for your input. I also read about that PR stunt. Providing a safe space for Magied? Lol oh please! It’s a debate. It’s just a shame that she didn’t have someone informed on the subject to spar with.
Apologising for racism and Islamophobia? Rubbish. Lambie criticised a religious based legal system. It is not above scrutiny.
My big question is why are so many Australians falling for this nonsense?

I think political correctness is like a corporate drug, and it’s hard for society to break free. I don’t really know how Australians got sucked into it in the first place. I’d have thought that as a nation we still had a good dose of honesty and individuality. Perhaps that is slowly disappearing. I hope not.

@annbowyer I think the combination of gender and identity politics perpetuated by the media have lead to us to where we are now. We need to stop pandering, stop going on knee jerk reaction emotionalism and start utilizing critical thought, intelligence, reality, and facts. Facts don’t care about feelings. Nothing I wrote in the above article is emotionally driven nor factually incorrect. One can claim that Magied’s interpretation of Sharia is harmless and it may well be, living in Brisbane and picking and choosing from it as you see fit will make it harmless. That doesn’t change the fact that the way its written, applied, and enforced is a human rights violation in so many ways.

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